An automotive smorgasbord

For fourteen years and 200,000 kilometres, I’ve been waiting for my temporary Jeep Cherokee to commit a fatally expensive mechanical faux-pas, which would justify changing it for a 1990s Range Rover, from the period when they still had functioning suspension.

I thought this might finally have happened when minor oil incontinence erupted into explosive hydrocarbon diarrhoea. Like Rambo the ancient rude Chihuahua, the similarly geriatric Jeep has for a while lifted its leg and left its little markers on the world. That then developed into driveway puddles and a notable drop in the oil level.

A blown rear main crankshaft oil